Out with the old, in with the new

I've been composing a post in my head all day and keep revising it. I think the year is too hard to recap, since most of the drama has happened in the past month.

Aside from losing my job, we suffered a loss at church as well with the passing of two of our choir members just in the last ten days. On the better news front, a good friend from my older son's youth group days had a beautiful baby boy this summer, and my beautiful baby has grown taller than me now and will be off to high school next fall.

Hopefully this new year will see better economic days for us all, in the form of a new job for me and just better times overall for everyone. Our middle child deploys to Afghanistan in the spring and I plan to play ostrich about that just a bit longer.

Our oldest is thriving in spite of having us for parents, and that makes me feel wonderful. I'm so very proud of all of my kids and the loves of their lives.

This has been the Year of Facebook for me and it's been nothing short of amazing. I have reconnected with people that were at my 5th birthday party (50 years ago), best friends from Junior and Senior High, two of my bridesmaids from my Junior College days, friends I sang with in Junior College and also at NIU. I have found and also been found by co-workers from my first teaching job, and by students in my very first 1st grade class back in 1981 and even one that I had as a student when I was interning in 1977.

I have become better friends with people I have met on Plurk, and then (again) through Facebook.

It's just so amazing. I am so blessed.

I hope that the new year is good to you all, and that you have as much joy as you have brought to me this year.


Allow me to close with the words from a favorite choral anthem of mine from about 35 years ago. It was taken from a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins.


And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day.

Healing for Anissa

Please read this and participate if you can. Please spread the word, too.

Healing for Anissa

This is so, so very important.

Wrapping up the holidays

I've been putting off posting, but I need to go ahead and give some sort of rundown about life here in the sunny south. From the highs of our Thanksgiving trip and then finishing NaNoWriMo, came the lowest of the lows when I was laid of from my job on December 11th. Two weeks before Christmas? Yes, the timing couldn't have been much worse. I didn't see it coming at all. I knew there were going to be cuts in staff, but had been assured that my department would be safe.

So yes, I was blindsided on that one and it was pretty devastating. I didn't make a fortune, but it certainly contributed to the running of the household. It took me until Christmas Eve to stop weeping at the drop of a hat. Anyway, in spite of that, we did have a lovely holiday.

Christmas Eve we finished up our shopping and had a nice lunch at the local mall. The afternoon was very laid back and in the evening we had our candle light service at church. It was packed and it's always a great start to Christmas.

Christmas morning we opened gifts and went back to the church at 10. We had volunteered to help serve the community meal, and we served free meals to over 350 people, both the homeless and the simply lonely. It was an amazing experience. In the late afternoon we headed south to spend time with the rest of our local family, and had a wonderful meal out on the patio in the gorgeous south Florida evening.

All in all, in spite of the loss of job and missing our Marine Son™ and his wife, it was a lovely holiday. We are blessed beyond belief and every day on earth is a miracle.

Speaking of miracles? I hope you've been following the story of Anissa, the link is over there to the right. She's a true miracle.

God bless you all, and may your days be sunny and bright.

13 Things to Do Now that NaNoWriMo is Over

I haven't participated in Thursday Thirteen in a while. Here's my list for this week!

1. Release my inner editor from the closet where I stuffed her on November 1st.
2. Learn how to spell again. (see #1)
3. Enjoy using contractions again.
4. Stop feeling like I need to write out numerals so that they count toward my word count.
5. Enjoy not worrying about how many words are in a paragraph.
6. Avoid other writing challenges until January 1st.
7. Set up the new layout for this here blog.
8. Plan the music for the church sing along on Dec. 16th.
9. Plan the music for the church women's meeting on Dec. 12th.
10. Switch numbers 8 & 9 up above.
11. Clean my house.
12. Get back to being in regular touch with friends.
13. Sleep more.

Not too bad, only 11 and 13 are iffy. *g* I'm hoping to get to #7 after work today. The hubby is out of town and the child stays after for tutoring, so its really just a matter of biting the bullet and pasting in the new code. I already tried it on a test blog and I really like it, so away we go!